Anywhere but Paradise

by Anne Bustard

Where There’s Smoke

  THE NEXT AFTERNOON, the bulletin boards in Mr. Nakamoto’s class are shrouded in black. Class hasn’t started, but it’s before-a-church-service quiet. Pages flip, flip, flip in textbooks like program bulletins; lips whisper names and dates like prayers.

  “When you finish,” says Mr. Nakamoto as he hands out the tests one by one, “open a book and read.”

  It’s fill-in-the-blanks and short-answer essays. I pray for real that Mr. Nakamoto doesn’t take off points for wrong spelling of names and places, pray that I remember enough.

  Before class is over, I turn in my answers and ask to be excused.

  At the end of the hall, I push on the girls’ bathroom door, but it barely moves. I push again. Harder. This time, it swings open and I stumble in. The lights are off and the only light comes filtered from a frosted bank of louvers just below the ceiling that are closed tight.

  I stand still until my eyes adjust. The small space, hazy with smoke, is lined with girls. Some lean against the stall doors, some against the sinks.

  “Well, look who’s here,” says Kiki.

  “Is this the haole we’re going to fight with you?” asks a girl beside her.

  “If she squeals,” Kiki says.

  I hold my breath. My eyes water like crazy. Cough. Breathe. Cough. Cough. “Is this a private meeting?” I finally ask.

  “This is a public school, haole. So this is a public restroom.”

  Kiki grins wide and long.

  I should do something. I should say something, I should. But what? What will stop her?

  If I ever even think about thinking about telling anyone about Kiki and Kill Haole Day, all I have to do is remember this.

  I cross my legs.

  “You gotta go, haole, or what?” someone says.

  “I can wait,” I say, and back out into the light.

  “Could’ve fooled me,” someone shouts after the door closes.

  Thirty-one more days. That was the number on the blackboard this morning. Thirty-one.

  I find another bathroom. Barely in time.

  Walking with Malina

  FORGET HOW I DID on the test; all I can think about is Kiki.

  But it creeps me out to even say her name as I pour out my home ec trials to Malina after school. So I don’t.

  “Mrs. Barsdale is so unfair,” Malina says as we stroll toward our houses. “You should be in my class with Mrs. Leong. She’s nice.”

  I hoped she might understand. But it won’t make the bigger problem disappear. If Malina were Cindy, I’d say more. Ask advice. But I’d best handle Kill Haole Day myself. I can’t afford for it to get worse. And I don’t want Malina to know I’m scared.

  “What’s the girl’s name?” says Malina, picking up a pinkish-red plumeria flower from the ground.

  “Kiki. She’s an eighth grader,” I say as I stop under the shade of the tree.

  “Are you sure?” she says, and takes in the scent of the flower.

  “I’m positive.”

  Malina’s lips form an O and she goes silent. She shakes her head. “Stay away from her.”

  If only I could.

  Boyfriends

  “DO YOU HAVE A BOYFRIEND?” Malina asks, changing the topic. She puts the flower behind her right ear and we take up walking again.

  “I just got here, remember?” The sun hits my eyes, and I raise my hand to block the glare.

  “I take that as a no. Did you have one in Texas?”

  “A boy named Jake asked me to the homecoming dance, but we’re just friends. I had a crush on my lab partner, Harry. I think he liked me, too, but once he heard about my move, he backed off. How about you?”

  “I’m unattached for the moment.” She points to the outline of an empty heart on her hand. “Ronald Lee and I just broke up. My former best friend stole him away.”

  “That’s terrible. I’m so sorry.”

  “Me, too. Before him, there was Douglas and before him Keoke. No one lasts long, so I keep moving on. I might go with Sam or Kimo next. What do you think?”

  “I should know how to advise you about boys,” I say. “My Grams used to be a matchmaker. A cousin of mine inherited her skills, but I don’t think I did.”

  “Neat-o. Maybe they’ll come out for a visit.”

  “Maybe,” I say.

  By the time we get to Malina’s house, I know everything about her former boyfriends, future boyfriends, and for that matter, the majority of the boys in our homeroom. She makes all of them sound pretty keen. I just wish more of them were as tall as or taller than me like most of the boys back home.

  Music from her mom’s studio fills the courtyard, where we sit down. Purple bougainvillea blossoms cascade over clay pots on either side of the doorway into the house. Malina pulls out the Top Teen magazine and lays it on the wrought iron tabletop. Elvis Presley is on the cover.

  We take the “Are You in Love?” quiz. I love Elvis, I do. But I’m as likely to get together with him today as I am with Harry back home. However, I know enough about him to answer some of the questions, so why not? Do you share favorite foods? Yes. Milk shakes. Do you share favorite songs? Yes. His. Do you share favorite hobbies? Kind of. I want to learn karate, so I say yes. My score is five out of ten. The advice from the quiz—Keep trying.

  Malina scores ten and receives an enthusiastic You’re in Love! confirmation.

  “So now what?” I ask.

  Malina whips out her math book with its office-envelope-brown paper cover and a pen. “I need to practice writing Mrs. Kimo Nahoa, of course, and fill in my heart.”

  And so she does.

  Cindy

  MY FIRST THOUGHT when I wake up is—Today is Cindy’s birthday. My second—I’ve been here two whole weeks and Howdy has one hundred five days to go. My third—It’s Good Friday, so I don’t have school. I do not have to see Kiki.

  I mailed Cindy a card early so she’d get it in time. And before I left Gladiola, I bought her a gift and gave it to her mom to set out today. A bottle of nail polish in her favorite color—hot pink.

  I helped Cindy plan her first boy-girl party. A costume party. Cindy’s going as Gidget, the California surfer girl. Harry told me he’ll go as John Wayne. I would’ve dressed like Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. The cookout should start just about now.

  “I know you miss her,” says Mama at the breakfast table, when I remind her what day it is. “You two were so close, I thought you might hear from her by now.”

  Me, too.

  “Speaking of missing,” says Mama. “I can’t find the extra back-door key.”

  “It’ll turn up,” says Daddy.

  Yes, it will. Only not around here. Yesterday, I sent it to my best friend.

  Friday Morning Lemonade

  RIGHT AFTER BREAKFAST, Malina and I set up a card table and chairs next to the street. In an hour, her family is taking off for a campout over the three-day Easter weekend. Malina’s transistor radio crackles out a tune about lonely boys.

  Our LUSCIOUS LEMONADE and PARIS OR BUST! signs will surely lure in buyers. Guaranteed. A red balloon tied to a leg of the table spins in the wind. The sunny sun glints above the treetops.

  “Lemonade. Luscious lemonade,” we shout at the handful of cars that whiz by.

  “Maybe we’re out too early or maybe we’re already too late or maybe we’re charging too much.”

  “No, no, and no,” says Malina. “It’s a holiday. Folks are in a good mood. There’s nothing more they’d rather do than help two ambitious girls realize their dreams.”

  So we wait.

  And wait some more.

  “You know why I like Kimo?” Malina asks.

  “Tell me.”

  “He looks like Fabian, even if he doesn’t sing like him. He draws super neat and is vice president of our class.”

  “All great qualities.”

  A strong gust flaps our Paris sign in front of the card table. One taped corner pulls up and the sign swings down.

  “Do y
ou know people in Paris take their dogs to restaurants and feed them right off their plates?” Malina says as we fix the sign.

  “I do now.”

  “If they are small, they sit on their lap, or on a chair. And they don’t sneak food to them either. They order it off the menu.”

  Malina tells me her mom is allergic to dogs. More than anything else, she would like to have one. But all of hers are stuffed.

  With the sign secure, we again stand and wave at any and all passing cars.

  I talk about Howdy. “Mostly, he’s the silent type,” I tell Malina. “So when he speaks, I know it’s important. He loves canned pumpkin, which Grams and I discovered early on when we made pie. I call him my alarm cat because he wakes me every morning by touching my face with his whiskers.”

  “He sounds wonderful. I can’t wait to meet him.”

  If she does, it won’t be until he’s sprung. I explain the jailhouse rule: You have to be over eighteen or family in order to visit.

  “No problem. We could be hanai family.”

  I know I must look puzzled because I am, and because Malina keeps talking.

  “Your family could adopt me. Unofficially, of course. It’s an old Hawaiian way.”

  “So we’d be twins, only different.”

  Malina’s brother, David, walks up smiling. He’s movie star handsome, tall, with broad shoulders. Dimples. “Hey, sis; hey, haole girl. How’s it going?”

  The way he says “haole girl” is playful, like a nickname instead of something mean.

  “You’re our first customer,” I say.

  David sets the two big empty glasses that he’s holding in his hands on our table. “I’ll take one for my girlfriend, Teresa, too.”

  “That’ll be …” says Malina as she pours the lemonade, “a whole lot of money.”

  “Nah,” says David. “You owe me a bundle, remember?”

  “I’m telling Mom,” says Malina.

  “Tell,” says David, and walks away.

  “He’s so aggravating, especially because he can talk my parents into anything.”

  Like Grandpa sweet-talking Grams into serving him another piece of her award-winning pecan pie. And Cindy writing an apology poem to her parents and getting ungrounded after her April Fools’ joke last year. She convinced her younger brother that she’d just seen a bona fide UFO. By recess, the whole school thought it was gospel. Kids either fled home in a panic, lined up for the cot in the school nurse’s office, or refused to return to classes for fear of missing out on a might-never-see-again phenomenon.

  “You are so lucky you don’t have a big brother,” Malina says.

  Maybe this is true.

  “So, what do you want to do on our trip?” Malina asks.

  “Whatever you want,” I say. “I’m curious, why Paris?”

  “It’s the city of love.”

  But of course.

  “Besides, my great-grandfather was French.”

  “Keen.”

  “Oui. And since I’m French-Portuguese-Hawaiian by my mom and Chinese-Hawaiian by my dad, China and Portugal are on my list, too.”

  “So I could add England and Scotland and Wales to mine.”

  A boy hollers from a car that drives by. “Cheapskate,” Malina yells. “That was Douglas,” she says, plopping back down in the metal chair. “I’m glad I broke up with him. Though he is cute.”

  She’s right about that.

  A family Malina knows from her church pulls over in their station wagon. Four boys wiggle in the backseat. Malina gives them all lemonade for free.

  The good news? The mom gives Malina a babysitting job.

  We celebrate Malina’s good fortune by drinking the rest of the lemonade ourselves.

  She’s going to make it to Paris. For sure.

  Underwater View

  THIS MUST BE what it feels like to fly. Weightless. Free.

  It’s late afternoon and I’m facedown in the clear, salty smooth ocean with my snorkel and mask. My arms and legs stretch out like an X as I take in the wonders between the rippled sandy floor and me. With the gently rocking motion of the water, I float in the keyhole-shaped space between the coral heads.

  This makes up for the water I swallowed figuring out the snorkel. All the mask adjustments before I plugged the leak. The spit I had to spread inside the mask to stop the lens from fogging. And the shorts and a long-sleeved shirt of Mama’s I’m in instead of my swimsuit, to cover up as much of my skin as possible.

  In and around the coral—fish: a bright yellow one no bigger than my hand, with a black-and-white tail; a school dressed in broad black and white stripes with thin pennants of white trailing from the tops of their heads; a mostly yellow fish with markings like a raccoon around its eyes; an all-yellow as long and wide as a wooden ruler; a green fish with a red stripe along the side and red lines running perpendicular; and a bluish-black fish rimmed in white, with a teardrop of orange red near the tail.

  I wonder if any of them are the humuhumunukunukuapuaa—however you say it—fishes.

  “That’s enough sun for you today,” says Daddy, tapping me on my shoulder. I forgot he was even here.

  I lift my head—“Just one more look?”—and return my face to the water.

  A turtle. I’m this close to a turtle. I motion so Daddy won’t miss this. The turtle’s flippers, like wings, guide his path. He seems in no hurry, like Grams and Grandpa on a lazy afternoon drive.

  After we have a last look, Daddy and I approach the shore, where a family stands shoulder to shoulder in the shallows, donning snorkeling gear. “Don’t put your fingers in any holes in the reef,” says the mom.

  “We know, we know,” says a girl. “Eels bite.”

  Jeepers! Good thing I didn’t get curious.

  A wave swells at the shoreline and knocks me down. I rise, sputtering. More salty water. Not my taste.

  Under the shade of the coconut tree, Mama chats with a tourist couple setting up beach mats and towels next to ours.

  “Where are y’all from?” the woman asks Mama as Daddy and I approach.

  “Here,” Daddy says.

  “Texas,” I say at the same time.

  That’s home.

  Howdy Time

  SATURDAY AFTERNOON, Howdy refuses to come out from under the bench no matter how much I beg. So I lie on my stomach at the edge of his hiding place. The concrete cools my still-tender skin.

  “What a good boy,” I say as my hand inches closer and closer. His tail flicks back and forth. But no bopping of my hand. No hissing at my face. Howdy is still scared. About everything. But I’m sure he is happy I’ve come.

  I scratch his favorite spot just behind his ears. I move my hand down his back. His fur feels different. Thinner? I turn over my hand and look. My palm is furry. “Daddy, something’s wrong,” I say.

  “Looks to me like Howdy is shedding his Texas coat in order to grow his Hawaii one.”

  I am not convinced.

  I reach for my cat with the still-swishing tail and rub under his chin. “One hundred four more days after today,” I say. And then I lower my voice, “But I hope we’ll fly home sooner.”

  Maybe Howdy isn’t convinced either. He is still purr-less.

  Pele

  AFTER OUR VISIT TO HOWDY, we stop at the Golden Plum to eat. Steaming plates of Chinese food arrive at our table in short order. Daddy’s boss took him here for lunch this week, and ever since, he’s wanted Mama and me to come. White paper lanterns hang from the ceiling. A red-and-gold dragon eyes me from the wall.

  “Your hair looks nice, Mama,” I say as I spoon rice onto my plate. It’s fuller and curlier. Unlike mine, which is as straight as Daddy’s.

  “Thank you, Peggy Sue. My hair is frizzier in this climate.”

  “You always look beautiful, Virginia,” says Daddy. “Both of you do.”

  Mama and I trade in our chopsticks for forks after the first few bites. But Daddy uses them the whole way through on account of all that practice he had when
he served here during the war.

  Afterward, we head up the valley and over the mountain to the house in Hanu.

  No other cars are on the road. No lights. Not even the moon. It is hidden behind the clouds. Mama dozes.

  A gust of wind moves our car to the left. The radio goes to static and Daddy turns it off. The temperature drops and the rain pings against the window.

  The bag full of white cartons of leftovers on the floorboard warms my calves. I breathe in the spicy smell of egg fu yung, beef tomato, sweet and sour pork, and some kind of noodles.

  I sit up with a start—pork!

  I grab the bag, rustle through the cartons, and sniff. No, not that one.

  “Still hungry, kitten?” asks Daddy.

  “No, sir,” I say, looking up to see the lights of the tunnel ahead. I’ve got to hurry.

  On the third try, pineapple hits my nose.

  I roll down my window as fast as I can, hold on to the container, and toss out the sweet and sour pork. Then I collapse back into the seat.

  “Peggy Sue,” says Mama, waking up. “What on earth?”

  A droplet of sticky sauce plops on my leg and I reach to wipe it off.

  “Don’t tell me you just threw out perfectly good food?” she asks.

  Obviously, Mama doesn’t know.

  “Some kids at school warned me,” I say. “It’s against Madame Pele’s rules to carry pork over the Pali. If you do, your car might break down or something else bad will happen. Pele, the mean, angry goddess of the volcano, says so.”

  My daddy’s shoulders bounce with laughter, but no sound comes out.

  “Mercy,” says Mama, shaking her head.

  I exhale. Loudly.

  On the other side of the mountain, Daddy flips the radio back on and sings about leaving his heart in San Francisco. Mama leans her head against the window again and closes her eyes.

  Five songs later, we pull into the grassy driveway of our rental house. Daddy looks at me in the rearview mirror and winks. “Safe and sound, thanks to you, kitten.”

  “You’re welcome,” I say, and hop out of the car. Even if they don’t believe, I know I did the right thing.